Brothers in Tandem
by Lint
Summary: Clark and Conner Kent are always there to save the day. AU, Part1?


The day the Kent's' find them in a field, is the day Smallville is changed forever.

Jonathan thinks he may have a concussion because what he sees just outside the door of his truck can't be real. Two pairs of bare feet making careful steps toward him, little feet he notes, children's feet. He calls to his wife and she sees it too. They're both unsure of what to think when the face of a bright eyed, dark haired, little boy crouches into view. After the mayhem of what's just rained down upon them it's hard to think that children could be running around out of harm's way.

He carefully puts one of his arms above his head before reaching to unbuckle the seatbelt, and slowly lets gravity twist his body down onto the roof of the cab. He turns to Martha and holds her shoulders while she unbuckles herself and he helps her slide from her seat. They crawl out through the windows and are suddenly face to face with not one, but two bright eyed, dark haired little boys. They are clearly brothers. They look far too much alike not to be.

Jonathan's brow creases in confusion because they don't have any clothes on. A child's freedom on a farm could easily account for this, they could be coming back from a swimming hole of some kind and just as easily left their bathing suits somewhere along the way. But something about that assumption just doesn't feel right.

The bigger of the two boys holds deftly onto the little one's hand, but they don't seem afraid of the adults in front of them. They both seem old enough, but neither of them speaks. He turns to his wife, who is looking at the two of them as if the wish she'd just placed with little Lana Lang has just been granted, and runs his hand through his hair.

"We should cover them up," he says, to which Martha only nods mutely.

He finds an old blanket hidden behind the seat in the truck and pulls out his pocket knife to cut it in two. Once he's done he hands his wife a piece of the blanket and keeps the other for himself. When they approach the two boys, they stand oddly still, fear never becoming a factor despite the fact they are all strangers.

Martha kneels before the littler one, extending her arms slowly as if to say it's alright, she's not going to hurt him. Jonathan takes the same approach for the larger boy, who reluctantly lets go of his brother's hand.

They both wrap each boy in the cut up blanket and pick them up from the ground. It's too dangerous to let them continue barefoot along the torn up earth surrounding them.

"I don't think these boys are local," Martha says.

Jonathan sighs. "Kids just don't fall out of the sky Martha," he replies.

"Then where did they come from?"

They walk along the deep gash in the ground trying to find what had created it. There's a house at the end of the path, and Jonathan plans on walking them right up to it and asking the family inside if these boys are theirs. He has a feeling his wife would be against this plan for whatever reason, but in his mind it's the only rational thing to do.

"I don't know," he says. "But they must have parents."

He stops dead in his tracks at the sight of the black, diamond shaped pod, half-stuck in the ground. The first thought in his mind is that it can't be real. Things like this, he can't even let himself think the word _spaceship_, aren't supposed to exist.

"Well if they do," Martha says behind him. "They aren't from around here."

Jonathan stares at the smooth black diamond for a few more seconds more before turning back to face his wife.

"Sweetheart we can't keep them," he says firmly but softly. "What are we going to tell people-that we found them out in a field?"

Martha looks into the eyes of the little boy in her arms, then to the one in Jonathan's.

"We didn't find them," she says quietly. "They found us."

/\/\/\/\/\

The day Lex Luthor plows his car into Clark, he is fifteen and Conner is fourteen. And when Jonathan brings a dripping wet Clark into the kitchen the first thing Conner does is make a crack about him needing to remember to take off his clothes next time he wants to go for a swim.

Clark can't manage a weak smile for his little brother, which he always does no matter how lame the joke, and that's when Conner knows something big must have gone down. He looks to his father, whose face is angry and grim.

"There was an accident," Jonathan Kent says in a husky voice.

Martha jumps from her seat instantly and moves toward Clark to wrap him in a light hug, her nervous hands running up and down his back, before moving to his arms, and finally his face, checking for marks even though she knows better.

"What happened?" Conner asks, and everyone in the room looks at him as if they've just remembered he's there.

Clark opens his mouth to answer but no sound comes out. Instead he shrugs off his mother's touch and walks swiftly out of the kitchen. Conner watches as he rounds the corner past the doorway and listens as he trudges his way up the stairs.

He looks to his father, who stares after Clark, before heading back out the door.

Conner and Martha lock eyes, and neither one of them has the slightest idea what is going on.

/\/\/\/\/\

The day after the accident there's a brand new truck sitting in the driveway and Conner is the first to see it because he gets home from school earlier than Clark does. His brother insists on taking the bus while Conner himself prefers the three second run it takes. He already knows that there's going to be an argument because there is just no way dad is going to let him keep it.

Twenty minutes later Conner is leaning against the wall of the barn listening to his father and brother argue over the supposed generosity of Lex Luthor. Conner just rolls his eyes because his father's defense is one he's heard a million times over. It's not is if he disagrees necessarily, but dad definitely needs to come up with some new material.

But then his father says something about normal and Clark seems to snap. Conner hears the wood chipper get switched back on then the metallic groan of grinding gears. He peeks his head around the doorway to see his dad pulling Clark's arm out of the machine.

His arm is fine and Dad seems shocked, but Conner isn't the least bit surprised.

"I didn't dive in after Lex's car!" Clark exclaims. "It hit me at sixty miles an hour! Does that sound normal to you? I'd give anything to be normal."

So that's what happened, Conner thinks to himself. The word around town is that Clark played hero by jumping in after Lex, post Porsche taking the swan dive off the bridge, and miraculously saving him from drowning.

Conner makes his presence known moving to stand in the doorway, as Clark stomps up the stairs into the loft. He watches as his dad sighs heavily, his expression a loss for what to do next.

He looks over his shoulder to see his mother right behind him, and sees the concern on her face. He's caught in the middle of his parents exchanged look and couldn't possibly feel more awkward.

His father walks up to him and clasps a hand on his shoulder.

"Make sure your brother is alright," he says. "I'll be back in a minute."

Conner nods and moves toward the stairs, wondering why his father looks like he knows something they don't.

/\/\/\/\/\

"What did it feel like?" Conner asks.

He's sitting on the couch while Clark huddles down on a box next to his telescope hugging himself slightly. One thing Conner never understood about his brother is that no matter what he and Clark seemed to discover about themselves, Clark wishes it wasn't true. He wants to be normal, yearns for it so badly, and Conner can't help but think his big brother is nuts.

How can he not enjoy being able to run anywhere you want in the blink of an eye? Where is the downfall in never getting hurt? What possible bad can come from being able to lift thirty times your own weight?

"It," Clark begins, stops, not sure how to say what he wants. "It didn't feel like anything. I mean, when I hit the water it was cold, I knew that. But the car, the impact, was like nothing at all."

"Does Lex know what really happened?" Conner asks.

"I hope not," Clark replies. "I had to rip part of the roof open. Maybe they won't be able to tell it wasn't from the impact, otherwise it could spell trouble for you and me."

Conner wants to ask just how he got wrapped up in the equation. He wasn't the one getting rammed off a guardrail by a billionaire business mogul's son. He wasn't the one possibly getting exposed for his hidden talents. He knows it's a jerky thing to throw at his brother when he just wants to be left alone, so for once he stays quiet.

Their dad walks into the loft, pulling out something wrapped in a cloth from his pocket. Clark isn't watching, choosing to stare at his own feet, but Conner's curiosity is piqued.

"It's time boys," Jonathan says.

"Time for what?" Clark replies dejectedly.

"The truth," Jonathan offers as he takes a seat on the couch next to his younger son. "I want you two to take a look at something." He unwraps the cloth, present a shiny rectangular shaped object with strange writing engraved on the top. "I think it's from your parents," he continues. "Your real parents."

He lets Conner get a good look at it, but passes it on to Clark.

"What does it say?" Clark asks as he examines it closely.

"Yeah," Conner throws in, leaning closer to the object. "It doesn't look like any language I've ever seen."

"That's because it isn't like any language you've ever seen," Jonathan offers. "I've tried to decipher it for years but it's not written in any language known to man."

Clark and Conner share a look, smirks creeping up on both their mouths.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Conner asks, and Clark nods his agreement.

"Your real parents…" He trails off, not exactly sure how to continue. "Well they weren't exactly from around here." He looks directly at Clark's telescope.

Clark makes a face and Conner wants to laugh.

"So what are you trying to tell us Dad?" Clark asks. "That we're from another planet?"

Their father doesn't say a word.

"And I guess you kept our spaceship in the attic?" Clarks wonders aloud.

"Or in the storm cellar?" Conner throws in, causing him and his brother to laugh.

Jonathan looks at Conner, then to Clark.

"Your brother guessed it," he says.

/\/\/\/\/\

When Jonathan pulls away the old dusty tarp to reveal the smooth, almost diamond shaped craft Clark and Conner look at each other as if their father has lost his mind.

"This is how you came into our world boys," he says. "It was the day of the meteor shower."

Conner finds that he can only stare blankly at the craft, while Clark backs away from it as if it were radioactive. Clark doesn't want to believe. He wants normal at any cost, and this, this is about as far from normal as anyone could possibly get.

"Why didn't you tell us about this before?" Clark asks, the anger creeping into his voice as it had in the earlier argument.

"We wanted to protect you," Jonathan says. "Both of you."

"Protect us from what?" Clark yells, looking back and forth from his dad and brother. "You should have told us."

Clark takes off in a blur of speed, leaving Conner to stare dumbfounded at the ship, while Jonathan calls after his eldest.

Conner feels his father's hand on his shoulder.

"You're taking this well," Jonathan offers.

Conner can only shrug, his eyes still captivated by the ship. He wants to touch it but part of him is afraid too.

"This explains a _lot_," he says softly.

/\/\/\/\/\

Jonathan enters the kitchen to find Martha washing dishes in the sink, and he walks up behind her to wrap his arms gently around her waist.

"They know," he whispers softly in her ear.

Martha nods, concentrating on the last dish, before finally setting it on the counter to dry with the rest.

"Where are they?" She asks.

"Clark," Jonathan beings, "Didn't take it very well. He ran off somewhere."

"And Conner?"

"He went after him."

Martha shifts in her husband's arms, turning to face him. "How did he take it?"

"Better than his brother that's for sure," he sighs. "It didn't seem to surprise him all that much. I think, he half-expected such an explanation, but Clark…"

She leans into Jonathan's shoulder and nods against him, not liking the idea of her two boys running around by themselves after receiving such life altering news.

"They'll be fine sweetheart," he reassures.

She leans back and offers him a small smile but her brow still creases with worry. It's just what mothers do.

/\/\/\/\/\

The day the Kent's realize just how special their children really are, Clark is nine and Conner is eight, Jonathan takes the two of them out for a tour of the back forty. It's both the boys first time on a horse and the only thing either of them want to do is go fast. Jonathan keeps Trigger going in a trot, not wanting to rattle his sons too badly. He keeps a firm hold around Clark, who in turn keeps a firm hold around Conner.

The ride goes along smoothly until they are about eleven acres in, and a coyote crosses the riding path. Trigger gets spooked and hoists them all up on his hind legs and Jonathan tries fiercely to calm the horse. Regrettably he lets his arm loose from around Clark to get a better grip on the reigns and Trigger bucks wildly again, jostling the two boys from their seats on the saddle and sending them sprawling to the ground.

Jonathan looks on in horror as Trigger fearfully stomps on the ground, right atop the huddled bodies of his two sons. He jumps quickly from the horse and throws his hands up, trying his best to send Trigger back so he can shield the boys.

Once his horse finally calms down and steps back a few paces, Jonathan quickly kneels down to inspect the damage only to find that his frantic search for bruises and broken bones is met with childish laughter.

Clark and Conner are both unhurt by the incident and Jonathan's search for grievous bodily injury just seems to be tickling them. He hugs his two boys fiercely, bundling them up under each arm and wonders, not for the first time, just what fate had in mind when it bestowed these two boys from the stars upon him.

/\/\/\/\/\

The day the Kent boys discover they're aliens is the day the floodgates for meteor infected nutcases open in Smallville.

Clark plays a reluctant hero, helping while he can, and just as well fading into the background hoping no one ever noticed him at all. Conner however, does his absolute best to hide his abilities when helping out, but does not shy away when a grateful citizen offers their thanks, despite Clark's misgivings and many a verbal protest from their father.

They get through bug boy and fire coach, an incident where Clark and Conner learn just how strongly the meteors really affect them, and where Conner discovers that, for all his invulnerabilities, he is really uncomfortable with heat. They tackle the insane shape shifting lesbian together. They get into a small fight because one day Clark can suddenly see through walls and Conner can't, and the younger Kent child doesn't understand why it doesn't happen to him either.

They knock down ice jock and crazy old/young guy. They manage to hide from that crooked cop, when Clark wasn't so careful, and Conner just made it worse by threatening him.

There's invisible boy and handshake salesman. That kid Eric and the bizarre set of circumstances where he stole Clark's powers and Conner couldn't think of a thing to do to get them back. There's Ryan and reaper dude and bee girl.

It seems as if there is a brand new problem to face every single week of their lives, in those short months after discovering their origins, and the answers of how and why never seem to come along. But Clark and Conner Kent are always there to save the day.

/\/\/\/\/\

The day Conner learns he can fly is the day of one of the worst storms in Smallville history. Dateless for the dance and choosing to forgo showing up stag, where he would have most likely ended up tagging along on his brother's date with Chloe, he goes to the movies.

He can't help but bounce his knee nervously thinking about what happened to him and Clark earlier in the day. That sleazy reporter sneaking onto the farm and rigging the truck to blow up on them, where it just as easily could have been dad or mom going up in flames, and the fact that he somehow knew he and his brother wouldn't get hurt.

He wasn't in the truck exactly, he had helped Clark load up the fertilizer and was about to circle around to get in the passenger seat when he noticed that some of the cows had gotten out of their pen. So he ran off at super-speed to round them up and when he was on his way back to the truck, ka-boom! It went up in a fireball of wreckage.

The force of the blast itself was enough to knock him flat on his back and the _heat_ was so uncomfortable it felt like ants all over. Clark of course, had been okay. He even knocked the door clear off the hinges when it wouldn't open.

Dad had thought it was a leaky fuel line combined with all the fertilizer in back, but Conner didn't want to believe it was that simple. And it wasn't. Not when that Nixon guy approached Clark when he was getting coffee. Right then simple took a flying leap out the window. Conner can't help but think that it is all somehow his fault. He's the flashy one. He's the one getting his name in the paper, and the attention drawn onto him. He's the one who should be getting chased down by scandal rag reporters.

And the horrible twisted irony of it all is that this guy is out there somewhere, doing what he did, knowing what he knows, and they're not doing a damn thing about it. They're carrying on like everything's fine and pretending to be something they're not.

Conner doesn't know how Clark does it. How he tries his best to blend so easily. He's at the dance, trying to be normal (there's that word again) and it actually seems like an attainable goal for him.

He chews a little on his fingernails ignoring the preview for Hollywood's latest bomb-tastic action packed snore fest, and thinks about Lex possibly having a missing piece of the ship, and that makes him more nervous than any nosy reporter ever could.

Conner has never liked Lex. From knocking his brother through a guardrail and off a bridge, and seemingly kick starting this whole super-powered mess, to the constant denials and lies he kept throwing the Kent's way. He doesn't know why Clark chooses to look beyond, forgive, or just plain ignore all of Lex's maniacal little flaws, but he does.

Clark easily dismisses his concerns with saying he's just taking Dad's side in all of this, but to be completely honest Conner doesn't care at all about the Luthor's lack of a moral compass. He's not concerned that their business methods are nothing short of ruthless, or that Lionel views himself as some sort of demigod. There's just something he feels in his gut whenever Lex is around and he doesn't like it. He won't call it evil, because it's just too cheesy, but he does not see any goodness in him. Any favors, any smile, and any gesture, Conner sees the ulterior motive behind all of them.

All he is concerned about now is that Lex has a piece of something that doesn't belong to him, and he can't think of a single reason why he doesn't just burst into that mansion to get it back.

Finding there's just no way he can sit still long enough for a movie, he heads outside to some of the nastiest cloud cover he's ever seen. The few townspeople left are all scattering to find shelter, and that's when Conner hears the tornado warning signal.

He has to find his brother.

/\/\/\/\/\

He finds Chloe at the dance but she has no idea where Clark is. When they heard the tornado announcement the first thing he'd said was that Lana was right in the middle of it all.

Conner shakes his head and calls his brother an idiot, knowing exactly where he went and what he was going to do, and that's when Chloe finally asks him why he's here. He doesn't want to lie. He hates lying, and even though Chloe is little miss reporter extraordinaire, he believes he can trust her.

She looks so pretty in her dress and right now he feels kind of stupid for the crush he's harbored since she followed Clark home from school that day. Stupid because ever since then he's been Clark's little brother, and she's only had eyes for the older one. And now when it finally seemed like Clark was waking up to how wonderful Chloe really was, he leaves her in the middle of a disaster to chase after his own long harbored crush.

"I have to go find Clark," he says.

"Are you crazy?" She replies. "There's a natural disaster knocking at our door and you're going to chase down your brother in the middle of it?"

Well, yeah. He thinks.

"It's complicated," he says instead.

The look on her face tells him that little explanation isn't going to be enough, but Clark never gave her one before taking off, and he just has to wait for a moment before he can do the same.

"You look beautiful," he says quietly, but knows she heard.

And she smiles a little and looks down at her dress, and he really doesn't want to leave, but he has to.

He's gone before she even looks up.

/\/\/\/\/\

Finding mom is the storm cellar with the ship coming to life is the last thing Conner expects to see when he races back to the farm. He rushes to her side but she doesn't even seem to notice he's there. The yellow light is so bright, she's captivated by it.

"Mom!" he shouts no reply. "Mom! Where's Dad?"

"He…," she begins, the words struggling to get out. "Outside. That reporter came here. He videotaped the ship. Conner, he knows everything."

He feels his stomach drop at his mother's words, and feels his fists clench into wrecking balls. Carrying on like everything's fine never helped anything or anyone.

The ship's power whirls to a maximum as it starts making its way toward the door. Conner quickly shields his mother from the ship as it brushes past them and blasts out the storm cellar doors.

He stares and the fading yellow glow against the dark clouds before turning his head back to his mother.

"I have to go after it," he says.

"No don't!" Martha cries.

"If someone finds it then some hack reporter is the least of our problems!"

His mother can't find an argument for that, so she just throws her arms around him for a quick but firm hug, and stands up with him.

"My baby boy," she says against him. "You be careful."

"I will," he promises.

And he's out the door faster than she can see.

/\/\/\/\/\

He has never felt this way.

With the wind against his face and the ground flying underneath his feet, he feels more in control of his abilities than he ever has before. He's focused, determined, and on mission. The ship flies high overhead and he keeps up with amazing ease. Clark has always been just a little bit faster than him, but now it seems that his speed is finally coming into its own.

He thinks about Clark out there facing the storm, trying to find and save Lana. He thinks about his father out here somewhere, fighting to protect the family secret, and pours more heart into his efforts.

The ship is too high, he thinks. He's never going to catch it chasing after it on the ground like this.

He leaps in the air, flying debris knocking him back to the ground, and he stumbles into an unknown field, rolling to a dead stop. Getting up and shaking the dirt away, he races after the ship again, biting his lip, and forcing all the strength he has into another leap.

This time his feet never touch the ground again.

(TBC)


End file.
